Hope
by Nikoru-chan
Summary: Batgirl watches over a concert, and learns something in the process.


Disclaimer: As always, these characters are not mine. They belong to DC and Warner Bros and whoever else. I'm making no profit from this fic, now or ever. Please don't sue.  
  
I know this is dross, but feedback is always eagerly sought - Please C&C.  
  
  
Hope  
  
By Nikoru-chan.  
  
  
  
It is cold. And wet. Did I mention dark?  
  
This is not surprising, really. It's autumn in Gotham, and the streets are slick with rain and oil. Several hundred feet below me, a couple hurries to their car. A nice car, and the couple are elegantly dressed. As out of place in this neighbourhood as, as . . . a typewriter would be in Oracle's place, I guess. Don't know really. This whole 'word' language thing is still new to me, and similes are hard.   
  
Oh, I'm Batgirl. Defender of the weak, soldier in the battle against crime. . . cold, wet, and getting hungry. The couple reach their car, and drive off, unthreatened. In this area that's nothing short of miraculous. Of course, that's why they were here. A concert in the slums, specifically Jackson High School (referred to as 'the Jack'. Highest number of in-school murders in the state. Possibly the country. The place is a war zone - just ask Robin, he went undercover here for under a week. Saw two murders in the process.)   
  
The school is trying to raise money for a new gun awareness program. Well, that's wrong really; living here, people are **acutely** aware of the presence of guns. Half the kids are . . . what's the word Nightwing uses? Packing? Packing. But the program, if it happens, will help these kids explore other means of solving their problems. It's another attempt at breaking the cycle of violence, one that Batman heartily approves of.  
  
Which is why, in civilian identity, he's here.   
  
Which is why, in costume, I'm here.  
  
Make sure everyone who came to support the concert goes home again. Check that. Goes home alive and in one piece.   
  
Robin's two roofs over, doing a circuit. Nightwing is on the other side, and I'm holding centre. So far, so good. Neither Spoiler nor Huntress were 'invited'. Nor have they turned up.  
  
Batman hates guns. With a passion that goes beyond mere vigilante-ism. Somewhere, sometime, something awful must have happened to him. Something featuring guns.   
Intermission is over. That one couple were the only ones to leave early, everyone else is sticking it out.  
  
The music starts again, and this time, somehow, I find myself starting to listen. It's a high school orchestra. Nothing spectacular, right? I mean, half the kids have to take it in turn on the instruments in class, because there aren't enough to go around (there are tonight because of a generous donation from the Wayne Foundation.)  
  
But what gets me is the hope. These kids are trying their hardest, and they've already come so far. A full orchestra; winds, strings, even some choir people. A little off-key, but so much hope, so much heart.  
  
Trying so hard. When the statistics show that one in eight of them will be dead before they graduate - drugs, guns, domestic violence, random street violence. . . The Jack is an unforgiving place.   
  
But not tonight. Tonight it's a world of dreams and chances. For tonight, these people have a future, and it's a bright one.  
  
Swinging down to street level on a grapnel line, I apprehend two would-be car thieves. In less than a minute, they are trussed, and delivered (with their tools) to one of the police cars that dot the area, doing the same job we are. Having gotten them before they'd broken in, before they were 'in the act', I know they'll walk. But tonight that doesn't matter. Tonight people get to go home (in their undamaged cars), full of hope. No cheap car thief is going to ruin what these kids are trying to build for themselves. Not while I'm here.   
  
Behind me, the music swells, almost as if underscoring that point, and the sheer hope and happiness in it makes me smile beneath my mask.  
  
************  
  
The evening is over. Nobody got robbed, or carjacked, or (more importantly) assaulted or killed. The concert is, in my opinion, a roaring success as a result. After Robin heads back to his school, Nightwing and I head for the Tower. (I'm allowed to visit now, in costume, since I got my files back from that government agency.)   
  
Oracle, too, has good news; the funds raised from the concert will more than cover the program, and with a bit of topping up from, once again, Wayne Foundation, will even stretch to more music and instruments for the school orchestra!  
  
Watching the interaction between Oracle and Nightwing, I take a hint and ask for use of the shower, so I can warm up while Oracle 'makes hot chocolate'. Hey, everyone deserves a bit of privacy, right?  
  
I have a long shower, the warm water beating down on me, forcing out the last of the autumnal cold. That costume is really unpleasant when it's wet. So is most clothing, though, and after nine years of drifting - sleeping in the gutters or anywhere else I could manage - I most certainly know it.  
  
I wonder how many of the kids at the Jack have slept on the streets. Probably not many; when you're on the streets your priorities are different. Getting to school comes a distance second to survival. So these kids aren't rock-bottom, but they can still only go up. Follow the bright sparkling dreams of the concert. With a start, I realise I'm humming a piece from tonight's performance. The one that seemed so . . . hopeful.  
  
My shower finished, I don my costume again, now nearly dry. Unsurprisingly, the chocolate is no closer to made now that it was when I left the two lovers alone. With a grin and a wave I depart. I doubt I'll be missed.  
  
  
A day later I have to revise my opinion. Barbara calls me to the tower, and gives me a CD, a cheerful grin playing across her features as she does so. Playing it on the computer in my own mini-batcave, I realise it's the piece from the concert, the one I was humming in the shower. Played better, in tune, and in it's entirety. But the exuberance, the hope is the same. Like body language, music-language is expressive, so much more so than what people say. It has so many layers and facets, but music, like the body, cannot lie.   
  
And this music skips and bounds with an unbridled delight at life.   
  
My brow furrows, and I try to spell out the words on the front of the CD. It takes a while; Robin has been teaching me to read, but I'm still not very good.   
  
The CD reads 'Ode to Joy'. And I think that's wrong. It isn't.  
  
It should be 'Ode to Hope.'  
  
Because hope is what it gave to those kids. Any through them, Batman.  
  
  
NOTES:   
1. 'The Jack', and the two murders that Robin witnessed there are chronicled in 'Batman: Seduction of the Gun' a 1993 64 page special by Ostrander and Giarrano a copy of which I found in a second-hand bookshop.  
2. Ode to Joy is Beethoven's symphony #9.  
3. As always, respectful homage is intended, copyright infringement is not. 


End file.
